


Gates of Ivory

by toujours_nigel



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:00:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a vivid dream, and too direct to fascinate an analyst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gates of Ivory

“Well, nobody died,” Alec said later.  
  
“Not this time.” Ralph said. “Though I’m not sure I wasn’t tempted. I don’t know,” he added, contemplating his drink, “what Laurie thought he was doing.”  
  
Sandy said, “You know it’s at least partly your fault.” He had been quiet for some minutes, so Ralph had been braced for this or similar recriminations, but it was still too loud, too jarring, too non-Alec.  
  
It was all very well for Sandy, he thought, fully aware that the only former boyfriend Alec had ever brought home was Ralph himself. But he did have a point, worse luck. It was just a point Ralph didn’t think he could bear to much concentrate on, tangled as it was in the evening's collection of horrors.  
  
Alec, who understood his inarticulate appeals often better than the stated ones, hushed Sandy with a look and exchanged the full glass in his hand for Ralph’s nearly empty one. He hadn’t felt the last one at all and barely felt this. The third was better and, he recognised with a species of gratitude, Alec had given up on mixing them.  
  
Alec sat down beside him after taking away the empty, unbearably earnest in the harsh light. “D’you need to be driven back?” Sandy coughed decorously, and Alec looked across Ralph at him for some sort of wordless communication. “You can stay with us if you’d rather.”  
  
He had before, after hospital, and some nights when the thought of staying with Bunny was unbearable and he hadn’t yet found his own rooms. Before Laurie. It was as good a moment to resume the practice as any, but he remembered that his flat would be quite empty in any case. “They’ve gone off,” he said, and added with a sense of surprise, “by train to Laurie’s mother’s house.” It struck him that this was rather a journey to make, but he supposed it was sensible, and certainly neither of the others showed any sign of registering it as absurd. “You might drive me back if I have very many more,” he offered, because it was good of Alec to say it. He didn’t plan to be incapacitated, but the temptation to crawl into a bottle was rather strong.  
  
“You should stay,” Sandy put in. “You look about done in; I’ll make up the sofa, it’s no trouble.”  
  
Ralph, vulnerable to such things just then, felt that this was very kind, especially since they had never been great friends and he was largely accustomed to treating Sandy with a familiar disdain that often verged precariously on outright hostility. He felt a sudden desire, pushing through his misery, to show his gratitude to Sandy, if he could; at the very least it would please Alec.  
  
“You haven’t really said what happened,” Alec ventured carefully. “He brought Andrew around for a chat…” He trailed off delicately.  
  
“A chat. Yes,” Ralph said, “that’s one thing to call it. He looks like I used to, you know.”  
  
“Yes, we know,” Sandy said, and added by way of explanation, “Bunny told Toto and Toto, well, he told everyone, really. So sorry.”  
  
“Some men might take it as a compliment,” Alec said, more tactfully.  
  
“Some men,” he took some care not to shout, “can go bugger themselves.”   
  
Sandy, leaning forward into his line of vision, said with a curious anxiety, “Well, what _did_ happen?”  
  
“We got through introductions somehow and it was all very drear and proper, with that boy trying his best not to implode out of sheer embarrassment, one supposes.” He could remember very little of it. It kept slipping away, though perhaps the horror of subsequent things had blotted it out; still, if he could have chosen, their conversation wasn’t what Ralph would have had rendered mercifully blurry. “He looks like me in every way. Better.” Like someone had taken Ralph, the way he had used to look his last term at school, and gently eased away the last remnants of adolescent awkwardness, leaving behind perfection.  
  
“ _Every_ way?” Sandy grinned, clearly deciding that laughing was the easiest way out of it. “How outré a conversation did you have, to find that out?”  
  
“ _Biblical_ ,” he grit out, and managed to meet Alec’s eyes. To look at Sandy was unthinkable.  
  
“Well,” Alec said, in a voice half-way between clinical distance and the tone he’d once used to prise out Ralph’s closest-held desires, “why don’t you tell us all about it?”  
  
  
  
Like the telling made it real, he found himself suddenly back in his flat, seated across Laurie and Andrew, both of whom looked determined and terribly nervous. In Laurie he found it endearing; he looked at Andrew and thought, Good Lord, was I like that? It didn’t seem possible, but it didn’t seem possible he’d been any other way. It was like looking into a photograph from his schooldays. They’d got the pleasantries out of the way, and Laurie was squaring up to say something.  
  
When they’d all sat waiting for it a full minute, he said, “What is it, Spud?”  
  
Laurie said, “Andrew’s left the Friends. We’ve been talking about this for some time and...” He ducked his head, flushing an ugly crimson; even if you hadn’t known, it was easy to ascertain that he had been born with red hair.  
  
Slowly, hanging on to the words, Ralph said, “Yes. I see.” The boy was staring at him in an unnerving fashion. Any moment, he would bark off an order about half-term or the next cricket match. Even his eyes were the same colour.  
  
Instead, he said, “It isn’t that. But I don’t know how, and we’d like if you taught us.”  
  
Ralph thought wildly, _he's gone mad_ , and _I don’t want to_ , and _Good God have we all gone completely mad?_ Andrew had already risen, and was advancing inexorably towards him. He said, “Spud, d’you want this?” It seemed the only question.  
  
Laurie, still rather red, told his shoes, “I should like it very much.”  
  
It was strange, kissing Andrew. He was seated in a deep armchair it would have been ridiculous to try and rise from, and the boy had to lean down at an awkward angle to manage. Their mouths clashed together and parted, and came together again, more carefully this time. Andrew had got his bearings and was better balanced now, with one knee pressed between Ralph’s thighs and his elbows against the back of the chair. Ralph put an arm around him to hold him steadier and withdrew a little from the kiss, the better to look at him. It was like staring up into youth and health and beauty. He kissed very badly, eager and untaught, and something in Ralph coiled a little tighter in his chest.  
  
It didn’t seem to bother Laurie in the least. While they had been kissing he had come up to perch awkwardly on the arm of Ralph’s chair, and now leant in to press his mouth to Andrew’s temple, Ralph’s cheek. Someone kissed Ralph on the mouth again, and by the time he’d caught breath Laurie and Andrew were kissing. It felt inevitable, even correct, his sense of dread papered over with trust and insistent arousal. Andrew was achingly familiar, and Laurie had always stirred him. It was easy to kiss them both and watch them kiss each other and do nothing but guide them over the initial awkward pauses.  
  
He wasn’t sure how they ended in bed, but they moved well together, Laurie’s bad leg suddenly no trouble at all, or Andrew’s ignorance. It was better than anything he’d done before, either in the recklessness immediately after school or in the memorable voyage just after he had broken things off with Alec. They fit as though made for it, Andrew eagerly mastering new things and Laurie blissful. He made some effort to be generous, but this at least the boy hardly had to be taught. Ralph caught himself thinking bitterly that if there were a code of etiquette about this sort of thing Andrew’d be top of the class; just then, slumped beside Laurie watching Andrew go through the paces he’d been taught, he felt resentful again, as he hadn’t in some minutes. Andrew had all his limbs and faculties and had only ever loved Laurie and now he’d decided to learn the one thing Ralph’d had to offer.  
  
“Good lad,” he said when they’d finished, and smiled with rather too many teeth. “Now you’ve been taught, what of it?”  
  
  
  
“And then they went off?” Alec said, heavily sceptical.  
  
“No, I left them in bed to come drink up your alcohol. Use your head, why don’t you?”  
  
“Ralph,” Alec said gently, “It’s three of the night and you’re telling me your boyfriend brought the conchie he’s mad for to your flat and you both had him. And then they went off into the country and you came here.”  
  
“You don’t believe me.”  
  
“I want to, but you’ve got to admit this sounds like one of your shipping yarns; it’s amusing, but there’s a sense of the improbable about it.”  
  
“My shipping yarns are all perfectly real,” he pointed out, and Alec smiled.  
  
“Just so. What are you going to do?”  
  
Ralph looked up, penned, at Sandy, who rolled his eyes and went into the kitchen with their empty glasses. After a moment one could hear water running, and then the door closed firmly. Alec smiled a little, ruefully this time.  
  
“Not that again. I can’t bear it. If they’re friends still... if they’re lovers that’s their choice. If he leaves me for the boy…” he took a moment to try and think it, and found he could only see before him Laurie’s face tipped back against the pillows struggling for breath with Andrew touching him with awed care. “If he wants to keep seeing us both, it’s no more than I’d suggested.”  
  
“If he leaves you,” Alec said, very close now and very gentle, “what will you do?”  
  
“I shan’t try that trick again, never fear. You weren’t worried sick, were you?”  
  
“No, I took it very lightly, actually, after neither of you had the decency to answer the damned phone. Ralph, really.”  
  
“Poor Alec.” Really it had been selfish trying that one. Cheap, as though people’s lives weren’t getting blitzed every day.  
  
“If he leaves you, you’ll come to me wherever I am. Is that understood?” Alec’s face had a bright, strained look about it, as if he hadn’t let himself feel the horror of Ralph’s bit of foolishness till just now.  
  
Well, we can be bitched up together, Ralph thought despairingly, and shifted to tuck Alec under his shoulder. “Yes, Doc.”  
  
“I couldn’t bear it if you died,” Alec declared dispassionately, and kissed him very chastely on the mouth.  
  
Ralph pulled away with more force than he’d meant to use. “But you’ll risk Sandy having his… what is it… his fourth go at it, will you?”  
  
“Sandy understands,” Alec muttered, and behind them the water shut off and the kitchen door opened.  
  
Now we’re in for it, Ralph thought, and turned half-way to look Sandy in the eye. They hadn’t been doing anything, really.  
  
Sandy swept them with a bright, assessing glance, and broke into a gay smile. “I was afraid you were going to leave it to me to broach the subject. Now Ralph…”  
  
  
  
“Ralph,” someone was saying, with a weary sort of insistence. “Ralph, my dear, you’ve got to wake up. Ralph!”  
  
He woke to Laurie leaning over him, hands hard on his shoulders, face creased into a frown. “Spuddy?” he muttered, and woke the rest of the way up looking around for Andrew. “You’re back.”  
  
“I only went to use the lavatory,” Laurie said indulgently. “You were thrashing around; I think you’ve hurt your hand. Let me see.”  
  
The shaded lamp beside the bed threw a concentrated golden glow over a patch of the bed. Laurie took his hand and turned it anxiously over, tracing the edges of the scar lightly. Andrew had both hands, he remembered, and no awkward tattoos or prominent scars. But it had been a dream.  
  
“You’ll be alright while I’m gone?” If nothing else, that night had got them over the notion that Ralph was anyone to be looked up to; it had been a jolt for him, perhaps, but Laurie had rallied splendidly.  
  
“Dear boy. Of course I shall.”  
  
“You _could_ still come with me,” Laurie offered, setting his hand down, satisfied that there was no damage taken. “Mother would be pleased, and Aunt Olive.”  
  
“Your stepfather would have a fit,” Ralph said, and ruffled Laurie’s hair. “Alec and I are having an orphan’s Christmas; we’ll manage without you two, never fear. Besides,” he added lightly, “it’s good practice for when you head off to Oxford.”  
  
“There are these wonderful things called trains,” Laurie said, turning his head into the petting like a cat.  
  
There were. Ralph meant to be on every single one headed to Laurie that he could manage, but he’d suddenly seen a way to say it. “Andrew’ll be at Oxford. No, listen. I’m glad of it. That’s all.”  
  
“You don’t mind?” Laurie tipped his head back to look at him.  
  
“I’d rather Andrew than the exquisites who used to wander down to Portbury looking to rent.” He laughed a little when Laurie winced. “Know them, did you? Well. Be friends with Andrew or that lot or nobody, I shan’t care. But Laurie, promise me something?”  
  
“I’m yours,” Laurie returned, quick and fervent, and Ralph laughed again.  
  
“Pay attention, Odell, and speak when spoken to.” He slid his hand to the nape of Laurie’s neck and shook him a little.  
  
“I’m sorry, Lanyon, please.”  
  
“Insolent. This bit is important, _listen_. Whatever happens, and things can and you’re not to close yourself off to possibilities simply because you think it’ll hurt me, whatever happens, Laurie, I do not want to meet Andrew, is that clear? I don’t care about the rest but you’ve to promise me that.”  
  
Laurie, clearly confused, said, “I’m not very likely to see much of him myself. But yes, if you like. Ralph, he’s barely written me twice since everything, what brought this on?”  
  
“I met Bunny last week and it was atrocious,” Ralph lied rapidly. “And you’ve got a strange sense of duty, so I thought I’d better head you off at the pass.”  
  
Laurie nodded uncertainly. “You’re not entirely awake yet, are you?”  
  
“Do I need to be?”  
  
“It can’t be more than three, I should think.”  
  
“Come to bed, then. How’s your knee?”  
  
Laurie paused at an awkward angle, the knee in question pressed into the mattress. “Well enough, if you want.”  
  
Ralph found that he did. If he took greater care with Laurie than he did usually, he thought the late hour and their impending separation could easily explain it.  
  
Afterwards, Laurie said, “I wish you’d come; it’ll be terrible.”  
                                        

                                                                    
Ralph hid a smile against Laurie’s hair and settled him more comfortably. “Tempting, but I decline.”

 


End file.
